For Thirty Working Days a Year, You May Inspect the Invoices Behind Your Council Accounts. Most Councils Never See a Single Request.
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
In short. Once a year, for thirty working days, any person interested may inspect a council's accounting records and the documents behind them, and local electors may put questions to the auditor. The window is announced on each council's website as the "public inspection period". This site will be using it, and this piece explains how you can too.
The right is statutory, not a courtesy. The Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014 gives any persons interested the right to inspect a council's accounting records for the financial year, together with the books, deeds, contracts, bills, vouchers and receipts relating to them [1]. The Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015 set the machinery: the council must make its accounts available for a single period of thirty working days and must publish notice of when that period runs [2].
The document reference. Sections 26 and 27 of the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014 carry the inspection right and the right to question the auditor; regulations 14 and 15 of the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015 set the thirty working day period and the notice requirement [1] [2].
What it gets you that FOI does not. A Freedom of Information request asks the council to find and send information, with exemptions and a twenty working day clock [3]. The inspection right works the other way: during the window you inspect the underlying records themselves, including the invoices and contracts behind the summary figures in the published statement of accounts. The National Audit Office guide for electors sets out both rights side by side [4].
There are limits, and they belong in this piece. Personal information is protected, and commercial confidentiality is regularly asserted over contract terms; the guide describes what can and cannot be withheld [4]. Inspection is also not investigation: what you get is the record as kept, and making sense of it is the work. That work is what this site is for.
What happens next here. When councils covered by this site publish their next inspection notices, the dates will be reported in advance, the inspections will happen, and what the underlying records show will be written up with the document references attached.
Sources
- Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014, sections 26 and 27 (inspection of documents; right to make objections at audit). https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2014/2/contents
- Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015, regulations 14 and 15 (the thirty working day inspection period and the public notice requirement). https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2015/234/contents
- Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the request-based access route and its time limits). https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/contents
- National Audit Office, "Local authority accounts: a guide to your rights" (the plain-English guide to the inspection and objection rights). https://www.nao.org.uk/other-work/local-authority-accounts-a-guide-to-your-rights/